Speaker 1: This show is produced and hosted by Mark Webber. The
Speaker 1: show is sponsored by G three Aparo. I view's expressed
Speaker 1: in the following program are those of the sponsor and
Speaker 1: not necessarily the opinion of seven tenor or iHeartMedia. Who
Speaker 1: is Mark Weber. He's a self made business executive here
Speaker 1: to help you find your success, from the New York
Speaker 1: City projects to the Avenue Montaigne in Paris. His global
Speaker 1: success story in the luxury world of fashion is inspirational.
Speaker 1: He's gone from.
Speaker 2: Clerk to CEO twice.
Speaker 1: Mark is classic proof that the American dream is alive.
Speaker 1: And well, here's your host of Always in Fashion, Mark Weber.
Speaker 3: Mark Weber. Trade.
Speaker 4: That's all anybody wants to talk about right now.
Speaker 3: And I get it.
Speaker 4: We've all seen our net worth go down. But I've
Speaker 4: sold nothing. I believe in the companies I own. I
Speaker 4: believe that they're all well and they'll be doing well.
Speaker 4: So I haven't sold anything. I think therefore, I haven't
Speaker 4: lost money. None of you have lost money unless you're
Speaker 4: selling at a loss. And with that is a backdrop,
Speaker 4: we have to talk trade again. I can't believe it.
Speaker 4: We did it all last week. We've been doing it
Speaker 4: for a long time, but here we are. It's rational,
Speaker 4: it's big, it's the news of the day. But it
Speaker 4: was a fascinating experience that got me to agree to
Speaker 4: do this again. The other day, I was at a
Speaker 4: children's function, a luncheon, and I happened to walk over
Speaker 4: and see two little boys are sitting on the ground.
Speaker 4: They both have baseball cards. One of them is holding
Speaker 4: an Aaron Judge card. The other one has a Shohai
Speaker 4: Otani card. And it was amazing to watch because each
Speaker 4: one wanted the other's card, and they were talking about
Speaker 4: how they could trade, and whether or not they wanted
Speaker 4: to give up the card, whether they would be happy
Speaker 4: with the other one, And watching them discuss reminded me
Speaker 4: that fifty years ago, when I was born, I was slapped.
Speaker 4: I wanted my milk, and unless you gave me my milk,
Speaker 4: I wasn't gonna stop crying. We were negotiating, we were trading.
Speaker 4: I think about myself when I had trading cards in baseball.
Speaker 4: I wanted Mickey Manner. The other guy had Willie Mays.
Speaker 4: There's always been training. If little kids could do it,
Speaker 4: and they understand, don't you think the rest of us
Speaker 4: should be able to every time we walk into a restaurant,
Speaker 4: every time you walk into a clothing store, buy something.
Speaker 4: Every store you buy, anywhere anywhere you go is service,
Speaker 4: and it's a trade. I buy gas, it's a trade.
Speaker 4: You're offered services. You could accept it or not. You
Speaker 4: could pay the price or not. We're all traders. We're
Speaker 4: all experienced traders. You don't like it, you don't buy it,
Speaker 4: you walk away. We all decide whether or not what
Speaker 4: someone's offering is worth our money. And in business, that's
Speaker 4: what all we do, is trade. What is so confusing
Speaker 4: right now, and what I'm astounded is how messed up
Speaker 4: we are and how confusing the government is this. I
Speaker 4: don't think we have to be because what they're doing
Speaker 4: I think is right. We are right now. If you've
Speaker 4: been listening to the show the last few weeks, I
Speaker 4: am in agreement with what's happening. I believe there's a
Speaker 4: trade in balance and it can be fixed simply. I
Speaker 4: believe the tarage should be reciprocal. You tax me, I
Speaker 4: tax you make it an even number. I've been trading.
Speaker 4: I've been an international trader in negotiation for my entire career.
Speaker 4: I've been purchasing products for my adult life all over
Speaker 4: the world. I'm an expert, at least I was, and
Speaker 4: I always recognized that someone had something that I wanted
Speaker 4: and I was willing to pay for it. Whether it
Speaker 4: was a million dollars or ten million dollars worth of products,
Speaker 4: I could buy them. And it all was based on
Speaker 4: whether or not I had a choice. It's a big
Speaker 4: world out there. I didn't have to buy from anyone
Speaker 4: in particularly, but I had a choice of who knew
Speaker 4: what they were doing, what they made, whether the products
Speaker 4: were worth the money, the quality, whether I trust that
Speaker 4: they would delivering them time, and on and on and on.
Speaker 4: They could do anything I wanted to do, except where
Speaker 4: the government regulations were involved. The government has the right
Speaker 4: to stop trade with any country. The government has a
Speaker 4: right to assess therap. The government has a right to
Speaker 4: say we can't do business with a particular country. I
Speaker 4: don't remember now if it's still in place, but there
Speaker 4: was embargo. You couldn't buy from Miramar because their behavior
Speaker 4: in human rights. I don't know if that still exists,
Speaker 4: but I knew I couldn't go there. I couldn't do
Speaker 4: business there. We can't do business and Cuba against the rules,
Speaker 4: so you have to work within that, and there are
Speaker 4: limitations that are put on business. China used to be
Speaker 4: unfairly treated if you consider that quotas were put on
Speaker 4: their country. They couldn't explot as much as they wanted
Speaker 4: to export until they were members of the World Trade Organization,
Speaker 4: which if I remember collectly, Bill Clinton was in office
Speaker 4: at the time that he pushed that through. Now I
Speaker 4: understand all these limits and I worked around them. The
Speaker 4: government seemed to understand what they were doing. But we
Speaker 4: don't understand at the moment that the government has a
Speaker 4: right to make these decisions a trade and I will
Speaker 4: tell you this, this is not the first time trade
Speaker 4: has become political. It's always been about what makes the
Speaker 4: most sense for the best price wherever you want to be.
Speaker 4: But the government has always gotten involved with what we
Speaker 4: want to do. They set the rules. They have the
Speaker 4: greatest interest involved, the strategic interests. They would establish what
Speaker 4: countries we can import from and how many items we
Speaker 4: could buy from any given country you take political Turkey
Speaker 4: has always been a friend, but a friend with a
Speaker 4: question mark. They are living two lives. They are involved
Speaker 4: with one part of the world and involved with the.
Speaker 3: Other part of the world.
Speaker 4: But we are NATO and they've been our allies. But
Speaker 4: keep them happy. We've always given them most favored trading status.
Speaker 4: You could take countries like Bangladesh, who's always underprivileged and
Speaker 4: always third world. We gave them extraordinary rights as they
Speaker 4: and other developing countries part of the US government's decision
Speaker 4: on what makes important. Oh, having said this, there should
Speaker 4: be no surprise where we are today. Everything that was
Speaker 4: done was done with our eyes wide open. We sent
Speaker 4: people into China and told them we want to manufacture.
Speaker 4: We're going to teach you everything we know so you
Speaker 4: can manufacture those things what they need for our country.
Speaker 4: They stole nothing, we gave it to them. But now
Speaker 4: at a point where trade seems to be in the
Speaker 4: news and we're all confused. So I'm going to take
Speaker 4: this opportunity again a week later, a month later, a
Speaker 4: year later, to explain it again. I stated a couple
Speaker 4: of weeks ago, and I'm going to continue with today,
Speaker 4: let's talk trade. But first let's talk what is fair trade.
Speaker 4: And here's a revelation that again I've talked about many times,
Speaker 4: there is no fair in this world. There's no fair
Speaker 4: in life. There's no fair in anything. Fair is for kids,
Speaker 4: just like tricks is for kids. It's a made up concept.
Speaker 4: Nowhere as it's said in the world that fair is
Speaker 4: fair in the Declaration of Independence, it's not anywhere to
Speaker 4: be found in our constitution. There's no mention of the
Speaker 4: word fair. And if you ask me to give you
Speaker 4: a at home family discussion, is what's fair? I can
Speaker 4: tell you can only hope for the best.
Speaker 3: But if my.
Speaker 4: Sons and I live to be a thousand years old,
Speaker 4: the trade that relationship between us will never be fair.
Speaker 4: I have and will have done more for Jesse and
Speaker 4: my other son Jared, than they'll ever done for me.
Speaker 4: They cannot catch up. It's not possible. But whatever the
Speaker 4: relationship is, we've reached what we believe is a coexistence
Speaker 4: that we can get something from each other that makes
Speaker 4: sense in common sense. Unfortunately isn't so common in our
Speaker 4: familyse Jared, go to school, work hard, do the right thing,
Speaker 4: and I will support you as a father. Treat me
Speaker 4: with respect. I will support you as a father.
Speaker 2: All the question is can I come in Before I
Speaker 2: introduce you? I want to come in real quick. Hi, everybody, Hi,
Speaker 2: hold on, I can't sit back and hear this. All
Speaker 2: the times I help you with the printer, all the
Speaker 2: times I help you with your iPad, I have to say,
Speaker 2: that's value right there? No, I mean, my goodness.
Speaker 4: Did you ever feed me maybe formula food?
Speaker 3: Did you ever feed me from a bottle?
Speaker 4: Did you ever change my diaper?
Speaker 3: Have you ever met?
Speaker 4: Put you to sleep at night?
Speaker 3: Take you to games? Come on?
Speaker 4: How could you ever catch up with that?
Speaker 3: You can't?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel insulted. I feel like I'm a good son
Speaker 2: and I do a lot for you.
Speaker 4: That's my son, my co host Jesse Weber. Anyway, let
Speaker 4: me just finish where I am here. Common sense is
Speaker 4: in common, but here it's showing you don't want to
Speaker 4: look at it. You don't think you've done more for me,
Speaker 4: and I've done for you great. But here's what do
Speaker 4: you want?
Speaker 3: Is what you have to ask yourself in a nutshell?
Speaker 3: What do you want? What can you walk away from?
Speaker 4: Whoever has the power to walk away in the end wins.
Speaker 4: And the only people I want to talk to is
Speaker 4: people that are sitting across the table from me that
Speaker 4: weren't stupid, stupid people. The worst thing you can't negotiate
Speaker 4: him because they don't know right from wrong. But in business,
Speaker 4: there is no stupid. All the people across the table
Speaker 4: from you are smart and smarter than you, and you
Speaker 4: have to be on your game in order to make
Speaker 4: sure you're smart. Now, the only argument I ever want
Speaker 4: to get into, and the other side is in an
Speaker 4: indefensible position.
Speaker 3: And what you're looking.
Speaker 4: At right now, accounting for the world today and the
Speaker 4: trade policies that are put in place with our eyes
Speaker 4: wide open government to government, we don't like what we're
Speaker 4: seeing because it's indefensible the position over the years that
Speaker 4: we put ourselves in with our allies or our competitors.
Speaker 4: So Donald Trump is right for pressing the button and
Speaker 4: making this happen. There is no fare. But we could
Speaker 4: be smart, and we haven't been smart. Looking back to
Speaker 4: how maybe we got here. During the Vietnam War, we
Speaker 4: gave special status and special trade treatment to countries that
Speaker 4: helped us in the war. If you look at the
Speaker 4: war in North and South Korea back in the fifties,
Speaker 4: we took care of the South, We defended them and
Speaker 4: helped them fight off the North. And there were reasons
Speaker 4: for it, and there are reasons they have its special
Speaker 4: trade status with US.
Speaker 3: You could look.
Speaker 4: Back now and decide that anything you decided in the
Speaker 4: course of history doesn't make sense in today's times. But
Speaker 4: you can't put today's head on yesterday's decisions. And that's
Speaker 4: where I think Donald Trump is wrong. It wasn't stupid people.
Speaker 4: It was expeditious decisions that were made. You can't put
Speaker 4: today's head on yesterday's decision. But our reconciliation is due,
Speaker 4: and I support Donald Trump for what he's doing, but
Speaker 4: the execution is what's in question. All should we ask,
Speaker 4: all we should be hoping for, is they're smart.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: The timetable had seamed off, but on Wednesday. On Wednesday,
Speaker 4: they realized there was no rush and they put a
Speaker 4: ninety day moratorium on just about every country in the negotiations.
Speaker 4: No tax increases success for China. However, China is our
Speaker 4: largest trading partner, and going at it with them head
Speaker 4: to head in the media is going to cause havoc.
Speaker 4: Negotiations need to take place on all of these major
Speaker 4: issues with all of our major trading partners. There's an
Speaker 4: imbalance of trade, there's a deficit in trade. It's logical
Speaker 4: it can be addressed. The needs to be a negotiation,
Speaker 4: and I'll continue in one second.
Speaker 3: I want to make another point.
Speaker 4: I basically have said what I need to say. Look,
Speaker 4: it's easy to renegotiate now. It's easy to look at
Speaker 4: what was having transpired over the last ten hundred years
Speaker 4: in terms of international trade and be critical. I like
Speaker 4: to believe at the time it was intilented, it made
Speaker 4: sense for all the right reasons. Strategic business, economic partnerships
Speaker 4: developed with countries we needed as allies, we gave them specialty,
Speaker 4: whatever the reasons why, I'd like to believe is done
Speaker 4: for the right reasons. Those agreements have been in place
Speaker 4: for far too long. The defforts have been growing far
Speaker 4: too big, and it's right that we are reclaiming the
Speaker 4: power of America. You know, we talk about NATO, which
Speaker 4: is the worst trade agreement ever made in the history
Speaker 4: of mankind according to the government, according to Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: But at the time it was put in place, it
Speaker 4: was to benefit trade on this continent between China, Mexico
Speaker 4: and the United States. It was put in place to
Speaker 4: bring trade back to this hemisphere between these three countries
Speaker 4: without duty, without tariffs amongst them, so we could afford
Speaker 4: to buy from each other rather than China, and on
Speaker 4: top of it, we were closer to each other, so
Speaker 4: it would have improved the operations. What went wrong It
Speaker 4: was ill founded that the standard of living and many
Speaker 4: of our countries and companies is very different than even
Speaker 4: Canada or certainly Mexico, and most of the business shifted
Speaker 4: outside the United States. So it's right to reclaim the
Speaker 4: power America.
Speaker 3: We are a.
Speaker 4: Huge purchasing nature, probably the largest global purchaser in the world,
Speaker 4: and with that strength and demands, we should ask for
Speaker 4: and get what we want, or more importantly, not what
Speaker 4: we want, what we need. We've got the leverage. Anytime
Speaker 4: I ever had the leverage, I knew I was going
Speaker 4: to win, they negotiate, I could walk away, they couldn't.
Speaker 4: Now's the time we need to be smart. We're fixing
Speaker 4: the timetable. The President created the opportunity to renegotiate, and
Speaker 4: that's what he's doing. The question is are we doing
Speaker 4: it intelligently. My view, it was the timetable. Now that
Speaker 4: we're clearing that up, it seems to make sense. We
Speaker 4: can make our position clear, set a realistic timetable that
Speaker 4: allows for our businesses and infrastructure to absorb change. Change
Speaker 4: what we're doing, move it to other countries, pick new partners.
Speaker 4: We needed to fix the deadline. I'm still worried about China.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I've been talking about trade for a year. In recent shows,
Speaker 4: I laid out a plan. I can say, go back
Speaker 4: and listen. It's the forbear of what Trump and the
Speaker 4: administration's doing. They actually are doing what I said before
Speaker 4: we did it. In twenty twenty, I was on CNBC
Speaker 4: television talking Trump's war. I said, he's possibly there's not
Speaker 4: going to be a war China. I love them for
Speaker 4: what they are. They're hardcore, negotiated. They're an unlimited, low
Speaker 4: cost workforce who's highly skilled, perhaps maybe the best in
Speaker 4: the world. Now, I'm a businessman, not a politician. I
Speaker 4: know what I need and I know what they can
Speaker 4: deliver with my help. That can manufacture great products at
Speaker 4: fair costs or if there is no such word as
Speaker 4: fair at good cost. It's perfect for my business. The
Speaker 4: politicians now are using all the leverage we have to
Speaker 4: affect change on the geopolitical landscape, and that's their job.
Speaker 4: We should be allies.
Speaker 3: Not enemies. Now here's a tip.
Speaker 4: This one's so simple and so stupid what we're doing.
Speaker 4: Stop disrespecting China in the media. We've made them our enemies.
Speaker 4: In the media, everyone jumps on China. Could you imagine
Speaker 4: if they did it to us and we were listening.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't like it either. You can't threaten them, You
Speaker 4: wouldn't want to be threatened. Don't put that back to
Speaker 4: the wall. You wouldn't want your back to the wall.
Speaker 4: Talk with them privately. You'll find we have common goals.
Speaker 4: You have concerns regarding their growing military present. Okay, mister President.
Speaker 4: Build more ships, build more airplanes, invest in technology, build
Speaker 4: a military now for practically the tenth time, and if
Speaker 4: not the one hundred times again. And balance the trade.
Speaker 4: We buy more than every other trading partner. If we're
Speaker 4: buying five hundred billion from you and you're only buying
Speaker 4: two hundred billion from me, I'm going to give you
Speaker 4: a list of those things I think you should buying
Speaker 4: from us, and I want you to work out a
Speaker 4: plan to make up the difference of the three hundred million. Now,
Speaker 4: if you tell me you're not as big a country
Speaker 4: as we are, and it's only right that we're buying
Speaker 4: more than you, I'll listen. If you're a smaller country,
Speaker 4: I don't expect Australia to buy as much from US
Speaker 4: as we buy from them. Perhaps I'm told we import
Speaker 4: twenty billion dollars of beef from Australia. They don't buy
Speaker 4: our beef. So we've got to figure this out. And
Speaker 4: where are they going to say, you don't want to
Speaker 4: buy beef, Okay, buy something else. So China buys less
Speaker 4: from us than we buy from them, that's because they've
Speaker 4: been smarter than us. We like what they have more
Speaker 4: than they like what we have. We should do something
Speaker 4: about it, come on, President Trump, But not in public forum,
Speaker 4: behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: It's not China's fault now, or is it ever?
Speaker 3: It's our fault.
Speaker 4: We allowed this to happen. We made it very easy
Speaker 4: for them. And for years and years and years since
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety seven China went into Hong Kong. I think
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety was the start of the World Trade Organization,
Speaker 4: which freed them up to do whatever they needed to do.
Speaker 4: What have we done about it?
Speaker 3: Nothing?
Speaker 4: Because China at the moment is more industrialized than us.
Speaker 3: They have a.
Speaker 4: Manufacturing economy and mentality, and because they have an endlest
Speaker 4: of high people who work at lower wages comparable to
Speaker 4: our country and the rest of the world. They have
Speaker 4: a work ethic that's not to be believed. I used
Speaker 4: to go to Hong Kong and see them put a
Speaker 4: skyscraper up in less than a year. It would take
Speaker 4: us ten years here in the United States just for
Speaker 4: the permits, let alone building it. They get the permits,
Speaker 4: they get it done. China's people are industrios, their go
Speaker 4: to people. They get things done, and missed the president.
Speaker 4: Let's not forget all, if not all, so much of
Speaker 4: our clothes, our shoes, our tables, our chairs, our umbrellas,
Speaker 4: whatever what not are affordable. Americans can stretch their paychecks
Speaker 4: because of the hard work of the Chinese people. Now
Speaker 4: hold that thought, I want to go to Japan. I
Speaker 4: spent so much time in Jampan. Believe that your hero
Speaker 4: here had been to Japan fifty times. I walked the
Speaker 4: streets in Tokyo, I'd walked the streets of Osaka. I
Speaker 4: loved their culture, and I remember seeing very few Western
Speaker 4: people in Japan. Maybe they didn't like us, Maybe we
Speaker 4: just didn't feel comfortable there. I don't know what the reason,
Speaker 4: but I remember I did business there, but more relevantly,
Speaker 4: I always remember I didn't see American cars. I didn't
Speaker 4: understand it. Japanese cars were styled brilliantly, they were less
Speaker 4: expensive than American cars, and they had a reputation for excellent,
Speaker 4: reliable quality. At the same time, you couldn't say that
Speaker 4: for American cars, although our muscle cars in particular were
Speaker 4: worldly cool. And I remember at one point General Motors
Speaker 4: came out with a new Firebird, great styling, great callers,
Speaker 4: great price, and it had a reputation for liability. And
Speaker 4: as a turn, I was at a level in the company.
Speaker 4: I was entitled to have my personal car that the
Speaker 4: company would pay in sure for me and give me
Speaker 4: to drive as part of my compensation. And I got
Speaker 4: this Firebird and I loved it, and I remember saying
Speaker 4: to myself, why isn't this car or any other cars
Speaker 4: in Japan. So I was in Japan one day talking
Speaker 4: with some of the people I did business with, and
Speaker 4: I said, why don't you guys buy American cars? And
Speaker 4: they started to laugh politely, they're very polite, they said,
Speaker 4: when you came here General Motors, and we went to
Speaker 4: your trade fair, do you realize we drive on the
Speaker 4: right side. You drive on the left side, and the
Speaker 4: only cars you offered for sale were right were left
Speaker 4: handed driving cars. That's not globally responsible. We're losers. We
Speaker 4: weren't thinking right. Can you imagine that we're making cars
Speaker 4: that they don't work? It doesn't make sense. I remember
Speaker 4: I wrote an email to the CEO of General Motors
Speaker 4: when I came back. I was feeling big in those days.
Speaker 4: I used to be important. As you know, I'm not
Speaker 4: any law I said, what are we doing? I did
Speaker 4: get back a letter from someone in General Motors cycle bibble.
Speaker 4: It was an answer for a better world, but it
Speaker 4: was not the right answer. We weren't smart traders. We
Speaker 4: weren't thinking about when needed to be. Then the quality
Speaker 4: wasn't as good as the Japanese. As was a crisis.
Speaker 4: You want to blame the Japanese for making better cars
Speaker 4: than we. You want to make the Japanese for understanding
Speaker 4: we drive on the left side.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I don't know what has happened over the years, but
Speaker 4: she is. We needed to learn to become global. So
Speaker 4: if we didn't understand it, go to Hong Kong, go
Speaker 4: to the United's Kingdom, go to London. Mercedes figured out
Speaker 4: what to do. The Koreans figured out what to do.
Speaker 4: The Japanese figured out what to do. They drive on
Speaker 4: the right, so they bought they built cars that way.
Speaker 4: I want to go back to China. You can't blame
Speaker 4: China for having inexpensive labor versus the United States. You
Speaker 4: can't blame them for being competitive, even more competitive. Let's
Speaker 4: get smart now, we need inexpensive products from China. Now
Speaker 4: I have to tell you China is not the inexpensive
Speaker 4: source any longer. Bangladesh, Vietnam, there are many other companies
Speaker 4: cheaper than China. But China manufactures with great skill in
Speaker 4: quantity and quality. Every one of those people and their
Speaker 4: factories are expert at it. Their manufacturing responsibilities are always
Speaker 4: well deserved. They set a price, they deliver on time,
Speaker 4: and the product is right. And don't forget for a minute,
Speaker 4: our economy needs a low price. A huge, huge part
Speaker 4: of the Americ consumer's requirement is prices that are affordable.
Speaker 4: I can tell you right now that the current procedures
Speaker 4: in going in place in the trade negotiation and public forum.
Speaker 4: If we don't fix this with China, it's going to
Speaker 4: destroy luxury retail and whostsale in the United States. Most
Speaker 4: of are sneakers. Think about that, you're all wearing sneakers.
Speaker 4: Most of them are coming from China, and at prices
Speaker 4: people want to pay. If I said it, China is
Speaker 4: no longer the low cost producing country. They're skilled and
Speaker 4: reliable with prices that make sense. We do not have
Speaker 4: alternatives at the moment and the quantities and the scope
Speaker 4: of business that exist with the United States and China
Speaker 4: to make t shirt, to make shoes, and we don't
Speaker 4: want to make those goods.
Speaker 3: We're paying people in the.
Speaker 4: United States a different standard of levering. We don't want
Speaker 4: to make minimum wage t shirts. We have to make
Speaker 4: in computers, we want our people making computer chips. We
Speaker 4: want them making iPhones. We wanted to make cars. We
Speaker 4: want them to make a decent wage in this country,
Speaker 4: making twenty dollars an hour for products that command the
Speaker 4: higher price because they may command higher skills. We need
Speaker 4: this for our workers. You can't tell me that artificial
Speaker 4: intelligence or robots are going to be able to build
Speaker 4: and make those products competitively. And if they are, how
Speaker 4: long from now?
Speaker 3: We can't wait.
Speaker 4: Miss the President exclude a peril and footwear from these tariffs,
Speaker 4: particularly in China, or extend the deadline with China on
Speaker 4: these categories for the hundred times balance the trade. Here's
Speaker 4: the solution. Give them a list of what we want
Speaker 4: them to buy, let them work on it. They'll come
Speaker 4: back to this reciprocal trade. Very simple solution. Also add
Speaker 4: up all the protection of tariffs that are being put
Speaker 4: in place on merchandise and products. So you want to
Speaker 4: sell them to these individual companies and look at what
Speaker 4: are collective protection of tariffs and then either eliminate them,
Speaker 4: which I don't think is possibly because unless you ait
Speaker 4: a vath tax or consumption sax, we make the money
Speaker 4: tons of millions and trillions of dollars from these taxing
Speaker 4: products that are coming into this country. So if you
Speaker 4: take them all to reciprocal, that's the first win. If
Speaker 4: not match it exactly and then figure out another way
Speaker 4: of taxing. Now, the answer to these issues is common sense.
Speaker 4: No one can argue against this policy. In conclusion, I
Speaker 4: support the president. They're finally doing what needs to be done.
Speaker 4: They're extending the timetable, so it's not immediate. Yes and no,
Speaker 4: I've said what makes sense to do the timetable is
Speaker 4: a massive problem, but it's being fixed. Change it with China.
Speaker 4: Extend the deadlines, please, and stop negotiating with China through
Speaker 4: the media. Talk to them face to face. Chairman. She
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump are both very tough guys.
Speaker 3: We get it.
Speaker 4: You both have strong personalities.
Speaker 3: We get it.
Speaker 4: You both want to do what's best for your country.
Speaker 4: We get it. You don't hang your laundry out. Never
Speaker 4: let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking, Mikey
Speaker 4: Coleone said, face to face. Quietly, having said this, I'll
Speaker 4: now reintroduce my son, my co host, my lawyer, Jesse Webber.
Speaker 2: Hey, yess, you make a very good argument. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: We're kind of in an unpredictable territory right now with everything.
Speaker 2: You know. One of the things I think that's interesting
Speaker 2: that you haven't addressed is the reaction. So I got
Speaker 2: to tell you we were in a position where Donald
Speaker 2: Trump supporters, whether those are media figures, financial people, congressional members,
Speaker 2: they would support him through anything. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to the wallet, when it comes to the economy, when
Speaker 2: it comes to the piggy bank, I think it is
Speaker 2: fascinating to see them turning on him and questioning him.
Speaker 2: And I wonder whether or not that influenced him for
Speaker 2: the ninety day pause, because what do you see On
Speaker 2: the other side, there are those who say, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: just give it time, see what happens. This is a
Speaker 2: negotiating tool that I've seen commentators even suggest the really
Speaker 2: ones who will support him throughout anything, it's not a
Speaker 2: big deal to lose money. Hey, you lose money, It's fine.
Speaker 2: That's what life's all about.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't look at my four oh one ks, I
Speaker 2: don't look at my stock market. Really, that's that's the answer.
Speaker 2: So I think it's something to be said that even
Speaker 2: the people who are art in Trump supporters are very
Speaker 2: concerned about what he's doing. I haven't seen anything like
Speaker 2: that before. For all the things that President Trump has done,
Speaker 2: even when he's president, when he wasn't president, that are questionable,
Speaker 2: this is the thing that you've seen people turn on
Speaker 2: him for. Isn't that interesting to see?
Speaker 4: Well, I'd stop by saying behind anyone with vision, they're
Speaker 4: fifty well intentioned people undermining that vision. Now, the currncern
Speaker 4: I've had from day one on all of this was
Speaker 4: the timetable. As I said earlier, if you're going to
Speaker 4: negotiate trade agreements with one hundred different countries, seventy of
Speaker 4: them have pointed out that they're ready. It takes time
Speaker 4: to agree on what to gree By extending the timelines,
Speaker 4: he's going to be proven to be right. We're going
Speaker 4: to win far more than we're going to lose, and
Speaker 4: we're going to straighten out this country. Now, we should
Speaker 4: take a porse to take a big breath. If we
Speaker 4: do the same thing with China, all it takes is
Speaker 4: one phone call privately and both parties say we came
Speaker 4: to an agreement to wait ninety days. This maniacal paranoia
Speaker 4: will change. The stock market will go back. I said
Speaker 4: it again earlier. I own Apple stock. There's nothing going
Speaker 4: on here that's gonna change Apple's future. They're gonna have
Speaker 4: a blip, of course, they'll go up for a little while.
Speaker 4: They'll come back to normal over time. So Trump has
Speaker 4: a plan. They haven't done a good job of sharing it.
Speaker 4: All they've done is shown their bravado by the adjustment
Speaker 4: to ninety days on Wednesday, big, big, big difference. And
Speaker 4: we'll see on my belief the stock market will rebound.
Speaker 4: I've said all along, cool heads have to prevail.
Speaker 3: There's a logic to this. There's a logic.
Speaker 4: If I'm buying ten dollars from you, I want you
Speaker 4: to buy ten dollars from me, or explain to me
Speaker 4: why you can't. If I'm buying one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 4: worth of product from you and you're buying ten billion
Speaker 4: dollars for me, that's a big difference. And if you
Speaker 4: can't buy as much as me, I would like to
Speaker 4: know why. But if you're only going to do that,
Speaker 4: there's a problem. You could do a lot better. I
Speaker 4: will give you a list of industries that you can
Speaker 4: buy from. You know, the companies come in and do better,
Speaker 4: and that negotiation, believe me, is going to work. And
Speaker 4: believe me, I couldn't wait to see what happened to
Speaker 4: the stock market once this did it, and then it's
Speaker 4: going to improve even more so, so I'm good with it.
Speaker 4: And again I go back to what I said, Jesse.
Speaker 4: Any time I've ever had a great idea, the nicest people,
Speaker 4: the smartest people fought me all the way always. I'll
Speaker 4: give you a great example. You know, back in van
Speaker 4: using days. I recognize that I wanted to spend a
Speaker 4: lot of money advertising men's stress shirts because it was
Speaker 4: the biggest business in the company, and we put a
Speaker 4: substantial budget behind advertising men's stress shirt. And the interesting
Speaker 4: thing is one year, one season, I decided to put
Speaker 4: all my money in women's magazines, men's dress shirt and
Speaker 4: women's magazines. Now everybody said, what are you crazy where
Speaker 4: we're selling men's shirts, And I said to him, you know,
Speaker 4: here's the thing. Men know who we are. Men walk
Speaker 4: into stores. We're all over the stores. We have big presentations.
Speaker 4: They're going to see us. The best form of advertising
Speaker 4: is shelf space, and we have it. But women are
Speaker 4: influential and purchasing of men's shirts. They're influencing seventy percent
Speaker 4: of all the purchasing of men's shirts, whether through their children,
Speaker 4: whether they're their significant others, whether through their husbands. They
Speaker 4: are making decisions. Everyone fought me year that year, Marketing
Speaker 4: Age Many made me award of one of the top
Speaker 4: one hundred marketing people in the country for doing that,
Speaker 4: and our business grew dramatically and we established ourselves with women.
Speaker 4: But everyone fought me tooth and nail when I wanted
Speaker 4: to put a billboard up in Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: Nobody cares about baseball? What? Three million visitors a year,
Speaker 4: all the TV coverage winning the World Series, Men, Women Global,
Speaker 4: everyone watched the New York Yankees.
Speaker 3: Everyone came.
Speaker 4: I had people from LVMH, the President on down sitting
Speaker 4: front row and New York Yankees and they've never even
Speaker 4: been to a ballgame. And everyone in the company dk
Speaker 4: WY at the time fort me and to this day,
Speaker 4: I haven't been in that company for ten years.
Speaker 3: They have a.
Speaker 4: Bigger billboard in Yankee Stadium. So that's what's happening here.
Speaker 4: And I think the President has to take the heat,
Speaker 4: but he and his staff have to be smart. And
Speaker 4: now that they put a timetable change in, I've said
Speaker 4: all I want to say. I am tired of talking trade,
Speaker 4: but I am hoping now two weeks in a row,
Speaker 4: under great stress, definitions and explanations of what we need
Speaker 4: to think about. I've made my pitch to the president.
Speaker 4: Cool heads need to prevail. We're going to take a break.
Speaker 4: Tonight's show is entitled I'll Trade You, We come back.
Speaker 4: We'll do some more trading, but slightly different.
Speaker 3: Always in fashion.
Speaker 4: I spent a lifetime of my career building the van
Speaker 4: Usen brand, and I am so pleased that they're back
Speaker 4: with us now talking about suits. Men were dressing up again,
Speaker 4: and it's become cool to wear a suit. Suits can
Speaker 4: be won on multiple occasions, in multiple ways. You could
Speaker 4: wear a suit formally to go out at night or
Speaker 4: to an event. You can wear a suit to the
Speaker 4: office with or without a tie. If you look closely,
Speaker 4: now fashion trends, suits are being worn with turtlenecks or
Speaker 4: mark next. The choices are endless and every one of
Speaker 4: them looks right. You could really really look the part.
Speaker 4: I believe that packaging yourself is as important does the
Speaker 4: products you package, and wearing a suit is one of
Speaker 4: those things that make men look their best. Venuesn't invented
Speaker 4: a new idea. It's called the cool flex suit. It's
Speaker 4: been engineered with stretch technology, giving you the most comfortable
Speaker 4: fit and mobility. It's wrinkle resistant fabric, it's cool moisture wiki.
Speaker 4: It makes it perfect for all occasions. As we discussed
Speaker 4: just now, this new style of looking sharp while feeling
Speaker 4: cool and comfortable is amazing, and I'm so excited that
Speaker 4: the van Using company is involved in this new technology
Speaker 4: and is embracing the whole idea.
Speaker 3: Of dressing up.
Speaker 4: Let's not forget van Usen made it's name with dress shirts.
Speaker 4: It's only proper that the suit business follows strongly in
Speaker 4: its way. You can find van Using Kolflex Men's stretch
Speaker 4: suits at jcpenny or online at jcpenny dot com. Guys,
Speaker 4: they're great, you should go look at them. Donna Karen
Speaker 4: began her career as one of the finest, most successful,
Speaker 4: powerful women in the fashion industry. She developed a collection
Speaker 4: aimed at the luxury market for women on the go,
Speaker 4: women who were powerful in their workplace, women who had
Speaker 4: lives that extended beyond the workplace, and her clothes went
Speaker 4: from day and tonight. An extraordinary collection. But the interesting
Speaker 4: thing Donna Karen had a young daughter and she had
Speaker 4: friends and they couldn't afford to buy the Donna Karen collection,
Speaker 4: and Donna invented dk n Y Donna Karen New York.
Speaker 4: It's an offshoot of the Donna Karen collection. The same
Speaker 4: concept a lifestyle brand. Then we talk about lifestyle brands,
Speaker 4: what does that really mean? Simply what they say, there
Speaker 4: are brands that follow you throughout your lifestyle. You get
Speaker 4: up in the morning, you start to get dressed Donna
Speaker 4: Karen dcan why as intimate apparel, as hosiery, as all
Speaker 4: those products. You're getting dressed for work. You get accessorized shoes, handbags,
Speaker 4: and it takes you through the day. The remarkable thing
Speaker 4: about dk andy clothes for work, they work into the evening.
Speaker 4: The dresses, the suits, the pants, the sweaters, the blouses,
Speaker 4: extraordinary clothes at affordable prices that go from day in tonight.
Speaker 4: Part of your lifestyle is active. You have weekends, you
Speaker 4: have events, you participate in sports. Donna Karen's casual clothes
Speaker 4: did that under the dk and Y label. A vast
Speaker 4: array of casual sports where that make women look great
Speaker 4: as they navigate their busy lives. Whether you're going to
Speaker 4: soccer games for your children or whether you're going out
Speaker 4: to the movies, whatever you want to do. Dkn Y
Speaker 4: Jenes dk Y Sportswear is there for you. That's what
Speaker 4: a lifestyle brand is. And I need to mention DKY Activewear,
Speaker 4: which is extraordinary. The leggings, the sports bras, the sweats.
Speaker 4: You can wear DKY Activewear certainly in the gym, certainly
Speaker 4: when you're working out at home, and certainly if you
Speaker 4: want on the street, because it's that well done. The
Speaker 4: quality of DKY is nothing short of exceptional. And why
Speaker 4: shouldn't it be because it was born from the idea
Speaker 4: of luxury made affordable for women of America. DK and
Speaker 4: why a true lifestyle brand that takes you from day
Speaker 4: and tonight, from the week into the weekend, DCN Why
Speaker 4: you can find DCNY and Macy's DKY dot com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to it was in fashion. Here's your host,
Speaker 3: Mark Webber.
Speaker 4: When I was a little boy and I had trading cards,
Speaker 4: baseball cards, that's what they were called. I had a card,
Speaker 4: somebody else had another card I wanted. I agreed to
Speaker 4: give up something. I had to get it in return.
Speaker 4: Every one of us has been a tradesman. We've all traded,
Speaker 4: We've all negotiated. Men, women, every age, every size, every shape.
Speaker 3: We trade.
Speaker 4: Every day we walk into a restaurant. We're making a
Speaker 4: decision to purchase food in a restaurant and pay for
Speaker 4: it with our money. We consider it a good trade
Speaker 4: because we're getting value in exchange. I don't care what
Speaker 4: it is you go into buy gasoline. You need gasoline,
Speaker 4: you buy gasoline. We've talked about trade, and that's what
Speaker 4: tonight's show is now. Having said that, the lot goes
Speaker 4: into this a lot of legalities and my son, my
Speaker 4: co host, my fellow trader, Jesse Weber, Jesse My got
Speaker 4: what's been going on with Trump in the world right now.
Speaker 2: So if you talk about tariffs, I think it presents
Speaker 2: a very interesting legal question because you're already seeing proposed
Speaker 2: lawsuits regarding the tariff's current lawsuits, and one of the
Speaker 2: main issues is does the president have the power to
Speaker 2: impose these tariffs, because generally speaking, that's yes, it's the president.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's the president.
Speaker 2: No, it's the purview of Congress. Congress has the power
Speaker 2: to regulate trade. Congress has the power to impose tariffs. Now,
Speaker 2: the president could say, I have the authority under a
Speaker 2: specific federal law. It's called the International Emergency Economic Powers
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy seven, And his argument would be that
Speaker 2: under this law, when there is a national crisis, a
Speaker 2: national emergency, the president can regulate international commerce. So what's
Speaker 2: the emergency, Well, the flow of fentanyl, the flow of
Speaker 2: drugs into the country. I can use tariffs as a
Speaker 2: bargaining chip to stop something like that. Ah feels like
Speaker 2: a little bit of a stretch. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I don't think the Supreme Court would support him on this.
Speaker 2: There's been commentary that would suggest that it would be
Speaker 2: a nine to zero decision that what he's doing could
Speaker 2: be unconstitutional and illegal. And I think that that is
Speaker 2: a very interesting position to be in. We talk about
Speaker 2: whether or not he would get he's not getting the
Speaker 2: support that he wants universal support for the tariffs. He
Speaker 2: might not get support in the courts.
Speaker 3: What do you think about it?
Speaker 4: Wasn't there's something else with the strategic country's well being
Speaker 4: dating back to the seventeen hundreds or something.
Speaker 2: Well, let me just say. The other argument that I
Speaker 2: would say is they could say, over time, Congress has
Speaker 2: relinquished some of its power regarding tariffs to the president.
Speaker 2: But the counter argument to that would be that you
Speaker 2: really need Congress outright make it clear we are giving
Speaker 2: up our authority to the president when it comes to tariffs,
Speaker 2: and they haven't done that. So I think he's in
Speaker 2: and I think that that's what presents a little bit
Speaker 2: of controversy for the president. So anyway, that's what's going
Speaker 2: on with the tarwer and the courts?
Speaker 4: Well, how could the president then go so far if
Speaker 4: there's a chance that Congress could step in?
Speaker 2: Oh I'm sorry, Where have you been the last few months?
Speaker 2: Have we not seen the president trying every which way
Speaker 2: to see how far his authority goes and to see
Speaker 2: if the courts will stop him from deportations, the firing
Speaker 2: probationary workers to now the tariffs. Look, I don't blame
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and the administration for trying to do what
Speaker 2: they want to do, but you can't blame the courts
Speaker 2: for stepping in and saying you're not following the law.
Speaker 2: But he has the right to try to go as
Speaker 2: far as he can. He's just getting stopped. He's really
Speaker 2: putting the limits on presidential authority and executive authority. I
Speaker 2: think it's a very interesting time to have a legal analysis.
Speaker 4: Are any Republican congressman trying to stop him when it
Speaker 4: comes to tariffs?
Speaker 2: 're seeing a little bit of pushback, just.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 4: So this is another example where the Democrats are on
Speaker 4: the wrong side of offense.
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz, okay, Ted Cruz, who, by the way, this
Speaker 2: is Donald Trump used to make fun of Ted Cruz
Speaker 2: made fun of his wife. He's a supporter of the
Speaker 2: president nonetheless. But even now, when it comes to the tariffs,
Speaker 2: he's saying, either this will be a great bargaining chip
Speaker 2: to get the other countries to come forward and negotiate
Speaker 2: good trade deals. But he's pushed back and said, I
Speaker 2: don't know how good these things are. It's so funny.
Speaker 2: He never went back against the president despite all that.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to tariffs, when it comes to
Speaker 2: the economy, when it comes to your wallet, that's where
Speaker 2: you see pushback.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, it only leads me into a subject. I think,
Speaker 4: as I said, behind anyone with vision, they're fifty well
Speaker 4: intentioned people undermining that vision. I think the president is
Speaker 4: being brilliant. I think he's got balls as big as
Speaker 4: an elephant. And I don't think he's afraid of doing anything. No,
Speaker 4: I only pray. I have my fingers crossed. I don't
Speaker 4: like looking at my four oh one k. I don't
Speaker 4: like looking at anything. I don't like looking at any statements.
Speaker 4: What's going on from from financial point of view. But
Speaker 4: if they calm down and do it smart, and do
Speaker 4: their homework and handle it properly, I have great faith
Speaker 4: in the decisions that have being made, except for China publicly. Now,
Speaker 4: what's saying that I want to talk about what's in
Speaker 4: my life? I was brilliant, Jesse. You think I'm brilliant
Speaker 4: more than once in my life.
Speaker 2: I would say so, even though you don't give yourself
Speaker 2: enough credit.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you for that. You're usually hounding me.
Speaker 2: Well, what have I ever said? You're not brilliant, you're
Speaker 2: not smart?
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. I used to
Speaker 4: be important, you know, I would think, oh, well, my
Speaker 4: son saying I'm brom lost for words. Thank you, which
Speaker 4: brings me to Have you seen the Bob Dylan interview
Speaker 4: on sixty minutes from the year two thousand and four. No, well,
Speaker 4: he was interviewed, of course because the movie A Complete
Speaker 4: Unknown Coming Out was interviewed, and in very awful terms.
Speaker 4: The moderator from sixty minutes asked him, how did you
Speaker 4: write those songs? They were so brilliant, and he said,
Speaker 4: and he thought about it, and he took a pause
Speaker 4: and he said, I don't know. All I can tell
Speaker 4: you was it was magical. And he said, not the
Speaker 4: Siegfried and Roy kind of magical. It was something between
Speaker 4: me and the world that these words came into my
Speaker 4: mind and I wrote these songs. And the guy said,
Speaker 4: it's brilliant. Can you do it again? And he said,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't want to even try to sit down because
Speaker 4: I know I can't do it again. And he said
Speaker 4: to him, how does that make you feel? He said, well,
Speaker 4: I know I did it once and I could do
Speaker 4: something else, which speaks to me because we're talking about trade,
Speaker 4: and I want to tell you that once in my
Speaker 4: life was brilliant. I was working for van Usin at
Speaker 4: the time, and the entire textile industry in the United
Speaker 4: States didn't make sense. They put the emphasis on the
Speaker 4: suppliers and not the end users. There were huge textile
Speaker 4: mills making the fabric that controlled everything, and they said
Speaker 4: all the rules. They would tell you how much to buy,
Speaker 4: what you'd pay for it. You had no other alternative
Speaker 4: because it was all in the United States. I won't
Speaker 4: say all the mills were hoots with each other, but
Speaker 4: the prices were all the same. The quantities they made
Speaker 4: you buy created surplus. It was not a good environment.
Speaker 4: And I was brought into the dress shirt business watching this,
Speaker 4: and I watched it for about a week ten days,
Speaker 4: and I said, there's no way you can sustain this.
Speaker 4: This makes no sense. And at the time when I
Speaker 4: was watching it, there were people who were middlemen. They
Speaker 4: were called agents entrepreneurs who would go to Japan, Taiwan,
Speaker 4: and Korea and offer alternatives to companies like myself to
Speaker 4: buy fabric at lower prices and less quantities and better quality.
Speaker 4: Just think about what these you wanted at a lower
Speaker 4: price and better quality. And we didn't know anything about it,
Speaker 4: and we started to buy from them. Let's just say,
Speaker 4: without going into the long story, I realized that there
Speaker 4: was a world outside the United States and textile that
Speaker 4: we didn't know and we needed to explore. And I
Speaker 4: went to my boss at the time, vice president and
Speaker 4: general manager, said, I want to go to Asia. I
Speaker 4: think we could do better. I now know where all
Speaker 4: these mills are. We know what they're doing. Why do
Speaker 4: we need a middleman to go and do this for us?
Speaker 4: And he said, let me get back to you, and
Speaker 4: he went to the president of the company. The president
Speaker 4: of the company agreed that we could make a trip
Speaker 4: that based on our explanation and based on the surpluses
Speaker 4: we were creating, and based upon the fact that the
Speaker 4: world was changing, fashion and dreasure and church in general
Speaker 4: was exploding, and we were being limited by a small
Speaker 4: choice of ideas in the United States. And they sent
Speaker 4: us on a way, and I went to Asian, and
Speaker 4: I realized in Asian that there was a better mouth,
Speaker 4: there was a better way to do this. And I
Speaker 4: learned textiles from the ground up. I knew everything about
Speaker 4: the yarn, how you weave, how many machines you need
Speaker 4: to get the quantities you need, how long it takes,
Speaker 4: what the prices should be. I understood that if a
Speaker 4: pattern a shirt pattern was mostly white with a black stripe,
Speaker 4: in behalf the price of a mostly black shirt with
Speaker 4: a white stripe. I learned everything that was to know,
Speaker 4: and I became I kid you, not even at my
Speaker 4: young age. I was younger than you, Jesse. I was
Speaker 4: one of the pre eminent, if not the most, knowledgeable
Speaker 4: man in the United States about purchasing textiles overseas.
Speaker 3: I was brilliant.
Speaker 4: If you ask me like you asked Bob Dylan today,
Speaker 4: if you asked me, can I do this again? I
Speaker 4: don't think so. I don't know how. At twenty six
Speaker 4: years old, I figured this all out, but I did,
Speaker 4: and I thought, being that we're trading and we're talking
Speaker 4: about trade, I wanted to share some of the lessons
Speaker 4: I learned along the way because I was drawn to
Speaker 4: a And here's some of the keys to being a
Speaker 4: smart trade negotiated. First of all, you have to be thorough.
Speaker 4: You have to know what all the options are. So
Speaker 4: the negotiator is right now with Donald Trump's group. If
Speaker 4: you're going to take us out of China, where am
Speaker 4: I going to make my sneakers? Vulcanized shoes, that's what
Speaker 4: they're called. You know, the bottoms of sneakers are attached
Speaker 4: with glue and under high pressure and heat. Very few
Speaker 4: countries have this expertise. So where are we going to
Speaker 4: get all those sneakers wh're not there's a problem. So
Speaker 4: if Donald Trump and team want to close off China,
Speaker 4: what are they going to do close off the sneaker business?
Speaker 4: It's one of the hottest, most important businesses in this
Speaker 4: country and around the world. So you one, you have
Speaker 4: to be thorough. Number two, you have to be smart.
Speaker 4: If you're going to make a decision, you have to
Speaker 4: make sure you're making the right You always have to
Speaker 4: be clever. If Donald Trump and company came to us
Speaker 4: and said, hey, you no longer can make sneakers in China,
Speaker 4: but we've found out that bank, the Desh has the
Speaker 4: ability to make five million pair a day.
Speaker 3: You go there.
Speaker 4: We've already talked to Bangladesh. We're to give them special treatment.
Speaker 4: So you have to be clever negotiation. You have to
Speaker 4: be nice. You have to always have a smile on
Speaker 4: your face. It's not personal, it's business. And you have
Speaker 4: to be at the same time very tough. And you
Speaker 4: have to know what's the difference between those two. You
Speaker 4: could smile and still be tough. What you need is
Speaker 4: to know what you need, not what you want, and
Speaker 4: what do you want? You have to understand the negotiation
Speaker 4: if you have the ability to walk away. That goes
Speaker 4: back to being thorough. If I go to five different
Speaker 4: countries and I know all of them make the product
Speaker 4: I'm interested in, and the country that I selected to
Speaker 4: do the business with, or the company I selected to
Speaker 4: do the business with is not treating me the way
Speaker 4: I want to be treated. There are ten other companies
Speaker 4: in that country I could go to, or there are
Speaker 4: ten other countries. If you know the market and you've
Speaker 4: been thorough, you can walk away. Now. You always need options,
Speaker 4: You always need to know what your choices are, and
Speaker 4: you have them because.
Speaker 3: You were thorough.
Speaker 4: I want to tell you how I would organize a
Speaker 4: trip to buy textiles or buy anything for that matter, overseas.
Speaker 4: The first decision you make is based on your knowledge,
Speaker 4: based on the products you want to acquire, which countries,
Speaker 4: which cities, which companies have the ability to make your product,
Speaker 4: and you lay it out. In my case, the choice
Speaker 4: is just to give you a few well, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia,
Speaker 4: and Japan. And on my first swing through, that's what
Speaker 4: I would do. I would have probably one hundred to
Speaker 4: two hundred items that I needed to purchase, and the
Speaker 4: value of those purchases in my early days was about
Speaker 4: twenty five million dollars, which in turn represented about one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty to two hundred million dollars worth of
Speaker 4: product and department stores. I would visit all of these
Speaker 4: cities and all the companies that I thought made sense.
Speaker 4: On my swing through, I visited the suppliers. And here's
Speaker 4: the best thing I learned learn from each meeting you
Speaker 4: have you walk into your first meeting and somebody says
Speaker 4: to you, you know where the best Oxford shirt fabric
Speaker 4: in the world is made. It's made in China. Now
Speaker 4: I can't tell you that they can export it on time.
Speaker 4: I don't know enough about their business. Let's say I'm
Speaker 4: sitting in Japan, but that Oxford is great, and the
Speaker 4: twenty cents a yard cheaper than me. I could charge
Speaker 4: you a dollar twenty They'll charge it up the next
Speaker 4: meeting I'm going to. I sit in the meeting and said,
Speaker 4: what do you know about Oxford? Where would you buy
Speaker 4: Oxford if you and me? And sure enough I already
Speaker 4: learned about China. I would visit all my suppliers. I
Speaker 4: would learn as you go along, and each meeting I
Speaker 4: would regroup, and every time I went, I would go
Speaker 4: along my swing to all the companies. I'd spend a
Speaker 4: week all the cities, and I would sit and then
Speaker 4: I grew group in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, I
Speaker 4: would sit down and look at everything I learned and
Speaker 4: then determine where, in fact I would go back to execute.
Speaker 4: I always knew that if my plan wasn't going to
Speaker 4: work and I wanted to buy something in Japan at
Speaker 4: factory number one. If they said no, I knew the
Speaker 4: other factories in Japan. If Japan was insistent, then I
Speaker 4: would go to Taiwan. So I had a back door,
Speaker 4: I had an exit. I knew what I want. That's
Speaker 4: the way you negotiate from strength.
Speaker 3: Having have it.
Speaker 4: Now, I want to change the subject just a bit,
Speaker 4: because every one of us is aware of country of origin.
Speaker 4: Where do you want to make products? Well, if it
Speaker 4: was up to me today, with the momentum and the
Speaker 4: United States, I'd make everything in the United States. Let's
Speaker 4: assume for the moment I could, everything would be a
Speaker 4: lot more expensive. When it comes to the products I'm
Speaker 4: talking about, footwear, accessories, apparel just too expensive. Now, what
Speaker 4: I've learned is only in luxury are people willing to
Speaker 4: pay for where it's made. In fact, if you're buying
Speaker 4: a handbag feetne for three thousand dollars or more for
Speaker 4: that matter, if it's not made in Paris or somewhere
Speaker 4: in Italy, nobody's gonna buy it. They don't want to
Speaker 4: see made in China. Why are they seeing made in
Speaker 4: China for luxury goods? They'll pay for it, but they
Speaker 4: expect that in turn. Now, did you know made in Italy?
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets tricky. While the label doesn't say well,
Speaker 4: let's say it this way. The label made in Italy
Speaker 4: says made in Italy. Did you know that Milan, one
Speaker 4: of the great manufacturing centers of Italy, is really made
Speaker 4: in Italy by Chinese workers. There's one hundred thousand Chinese
Speaker 4: workers trained in China living in Italy making those products
Speaker 4: that are.
Speaker 3: Made in it.
Speaker 4: Even Laura piano wool can be products shipped to China
Speaker 4: made in China. So everything is different. America nice to have,
Speaker 4: but people won't pay for it. I learned that the
Speaker 4: hard way over the line, Jesse, I have a question
Speaker 4: for you. You see your shirt you like? One is
Speaker 4: in Gap and one is American Eagle. They have the
Speaker 4: same shirt. The American Eagle shirt is fifteen dollars, the
Speaker 4: one in Gap is ten. Which one are you buying?
Speaker 3: Ten? Exactly?
Speaker 4: Why you don't want to pay five thousand?
Speaker 3: Made in America? You know, exactly?
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I would pause maybe if I would do it, but
Speaker 2: in the end of the day, I probably just want
Speaker 2: to pay the cheaper price.
Speaker 4: Walmart, the largest retail in the world sells great product
Speaker 4: at fair great product at low price. Do you think
Speaker 4: they're willing to buy products that are made in America
Speaker 4: if they have to raise their prices above the comfort level?
Speaker 3: No way.
Speaker 4: One of the companies I was responsible for back in
Speaker 4: my day with LVMH was Thomas Pink Shirts of German Street,
Speaker 4: great London shirt manufacturer.
Speaker 3: They were on.
Speaker 4: German Street in London, which was the high street that
Speaker 4: was responsible for all the custom made suits with Tsavo
Speaker 4: Row all the custom made shirts, brilliant shopping area, beautiful
Speaker 4: British made shirts. When I got there, everything was made
Speaker 4: in the UK. He didn't last for long because new
Speaker 4: competitors came out.
Speaker 3: Jesse.
Speaker 4: What's the name of the stores The British shirt meger
Speaker 4: is in every.
Speaker 2: Mall now Charles de Witt.
Speaker 4: Yes, that guy came out and under cut Thomas Pink
Speaker 4: by fifty dollars a shirt. Our shirts were two hundred.
Speaker 4: They were selling them for one fifty. Then they came
Speaker 4: out with four for two hundred. We had a price stresses.
Speaker 4: So Thomas Pink started manufacturing in London in the UK
Speaker 4: by importing fabric from China and Japan, and they started
Speaker 4: to do it, but it wasn't enough, the margins weren't
Speaker 4: good enough, et cetera, et cetera. Eventually, Thomas Pink made
Speaker 4: all the shirts in Asia. Nobody cared. They loved the fashion,
Speaker 4: they love what it looked like. But here was the key,
Speaker 4: and here's our business in a nutshell quality with no surprises.
Speaker 4: I have a surprise for you, though, do you know?
Speaker 4: I want you to guess. Do you know twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: who had the highest quality standards of any one in
Speaker 4: the world in their retail store?
Speaker 3: Take a guest, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Take a guess who'd you think as the highest quality
Speaker 4: in any store you could ever imagine.
Speaker 2: Twenty years ago in the fashion apparel space, Yeah, h
Speaker 2: Macy's j C.
Speaker 3: Penny. J C.
Speaker 4: Penny was a national chain. They had the highest and
Speaker 4: rigorous quality controls standards of anyone in the country. They
Speaker 4: had more people in Asia examining your products being made
Speaker 4: than you had yourself. They set the standard, They told
Speaker 4: us what we had to do. They forced us to
Speaker 4: be better. I got another surprise for you. Of all
Speaker 4: the countries in the world, who makes the best products?
Speaker 4: What do you mean, best, best quality, most attention to detail, Italy, China,
Speaker 4: really China. Every country in the world, every company in
Speaker 4: the world went into China, who was backward at the time,
Speaker 4: who didn't know how to make products for export. They
Speaker 4: knew how to make products for their own country. They
Speaker 4: didn't know how the standards of the world were. So
Speaker 4: we went in. We taught them everything. What do you
Speaker 4: think Apple did when it came to iPhones. Do you
Speaker 4: think if China didn't make the best quality, Apple would
Speaker 4: be making all their iPhones or most of them there.
Speaker 4: China's quality is unbelievable. As I said before, they don't
Speaker 4: necessarily have the lowest price, but they do have one
Speaker 4: of the greatest qualities in the world. And why what
Speaker 4: I said we need to do. We need to bring
Speaker 4: phone making smartphones back to the United States because it's
Speaker 4: highly skilled labor. You could afford to pay more to
Speaker 4: make them. If you're selling iPhones for thirteen hundred dollars
Speaker 4: when it costs twenty dollars to make Believe me, you
Speaker 4: can pay people so these things and more. You know
Speaker 4: what kind of buttons you use, how it's sewn, Is
Speaker 4: this fabric strong? And if you ever wear a shirt
Speaker 4: and you bend your arm in a you tear it
Speaker 4: in the elbow. Yes, that's because whoever made that shirt
Speaker 4: doesn't understand bert strength. There's an technicality and a machine
Speaker 4: that measures the burst strength of a fabric bu rst.
Speaker 4: If you don't know that, you're never going to get
Speaker 4: in control. Every single color when it's manufactured needs to
Speaker 4: be finished in a certain way so the colors don't
Speaker 4: end up being on your couch. I have used the
Speaker 4: nicest buttons, mother of pearl buttons that you need to
Speaker 4: fish and wildlife, because they are from oysters or whatever.
Speaker 4: You need approval, you need to test them. Can't be
Speaker 4: destroying oysters. They're the first that break in club pressing
Speaker 4: in the laundry, and the ugliest buttons are the ones
Speaker 4: that you'll never break. So it's funny about buttons. Then
Speaker 4: the question is iron versus non iron? You care if
Speaker 4: your shirts are non iron versus irony?
Speaker 2: I mean saves me time?
Speaker 4: So do you buy cotton shirts that don't need to
Speaker 4: be pressed or you buy shirts that have to go
Speaker 4: out to be pressed?
Speaker 2: I mean most of my shirts I have to be pressed.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 4: There's a reason because one hundred percent cotton without a
Speaker 4: permanent press finish is a better quality. And then, of course,
Speaker 4: my greatest kick is polyester. It used to be the
Speaker 4: most uncomfortable product.
Speaker 3: In the world.
Speaker 4: At one point in time. If you were wearing polyesters
Speaker 4: like wearing the devil. Everyone in the world hated it. Polyester.
Speaker 4: And all these synthetic fabrics have reinvented themselves and they're
Speaker 4: now seen as the most comfortable fabric, the ones that breathe,
Speaker 4: the best ones.
Speaker 3: Really they don't.
Speaker 4: They're in every pair of yoga pants, every golf shirt,
Speaker 4: and now all of a sudden, it's the greatest quality.
Speaker 3: In the world.
Speaker 4: So this was an intellectual show this evening. Generally, this
Speaker 4: is a business show. I've tried so hard to make
Speaker 4: it a business show, but no matter what I do, Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 4: the likes of them have categorized this cultural and lifestyle.
Speaker 4: I left the culture and lifestyle out. Tonight was a
Speaker 4: serious show about tariff's trade, quality products and the things
Speaker 4: you need to think about negotiation. I am drained on
Speaker 4: the whole subject of tariffs and trade, and in closing,
Speaker 4: I'll say it again for the tenth time, please stop
Speaker 4: fighting with China in the media. You can say anything
Speaker 4: you want to them. In private, with respect, treat somebody,
Speaker 4: Treat others as you want them to treat you. China
Speaker 4: can be reason with. They're smart, they're intellectual, they're capable,
Speaker 4: and they're proud. So are We talk to them privately
Speaker 4: and basically speaking, I taught you how to trade tonight,
Speaker 4: and I'd love to trade you. I'll trade you good night.